I have worked with many leaders and many future leaders who believe that people are born with leadership skills. Some just “have it” and others don’t seem to have “it” or at least enough of it. For those who don’t have a belief one way or the other, they are often asking the question “Are leaders made or born?” The question often seems to be a self-reflective one, wondering if they have it or not.
Just having the open question often leaves leaders and teams hobbling around like they had a sprained ankle. So, what do we do to help sooth a sprained ankle? Put ICE on it!
I = Intelligence Quotient
From the time we started in school we have known about or had questions about IQ. How smart are you? Do you have a high IQ? Are you going to come up short in life if you don’t have that high IQ? IQ has been with us for a long time and here’s a few things we know about it:
- IQ is often static throughout your lifetime and doesn’t seem to change much with learning.
- It also seems to have many correlative factors such as: income, demographics, environmental factors, and can be influenced by hereditary or genetic factors.
- But most importantly we have never found any correlation between IQ and success.
C = Cognitive Function
Cognitive Functions are not static. They will grow and develop over time and with age. However, don’t assume that aging alone will increase your Cognitive Function. Gray hair also comes with aging but that doesn’t make you any wiser. You need to intentionally practice and get better at your Cognitive Functions that include:
- Focus: the ability to keep your attention focused on an issue in order to properly grabble with it. Lack of focus and interrupted attention are two prevalent problems I see in corporate leadership today.
- Perception: That ability to understand that your perception of a problem or issue is just that, a perception. Individuals high in Cognitive Function seem to have the capacity to deal with many perceptions to an issue and hold them in high regard as they sort through difficult issues.
- Executive Skills: This interestingly named function has to do with the brain’s frontal lobe and deals with decision making skills among others.
E = Emotional Intelligence
This function was put forth by Daniel Goleman in the early 2000’s and has proved to be highly correlated to good leadership. Elements that Goleman identified included the 5 S’s of:
- Self-Awareness
- Self-Regulation
- Self-Motivation
- Social Awareness
- Social Skills
These skills are also skills that can be grown and developed over time. With practice you can increase and improve each one of these.
ICE = IQ + CQ + EQ
These are the elements of great leadership. And IQ is the only one we’re born with and also seems to be the least impactful on our success as a leader. Average IQ is all you need. Developing high CQ and EQ will turn you into a great leader.
Leaders are self-made!